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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

This is probably somewhat true, but also I suspect there might be an order of magnitude difference from extracting trace lithium from inert rock vs collecting it as a salt from amongst a medley of very refined metals.

Case in point - lead acid batteries are not a fair comparison. A lead acid battery is so robust you can separate the cathodes and anodes with your (gloved) hands. Getting the elements out of a lead battery is like picking pieces of pepperoni off of a pizza. Whereas taking lithium out of a lithium cell is like pulling only a certain protein out of a roll of bologna. And the protein catches fire in contact with air.

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> And the protein catches fire in contact with air.

FWIW neither lithium metal nor most Li-ion electrode chemistries autoignite in air at STP. The fire hazard is primarily due to heating up to the ignition temperature through short circuits though there are also exothermic reactions with e.g. water that can heat things up sufficiently.

Being the eager electron donor it is, once it is on fire it is very hard to put out, of course.

As late as the early 80s and probably later there was a guy in the city I live near that had a battery recycling company where they did just that - melted the pitch to extract the cells from the battery "bucket", cut the old cells off and melted them down, cast new grids and put new lead oxide in, and sealed it all up again.

My dad bought a recycled lorry battery off them in the late 70s, and I remember going to the place to pick it up. I can't imagine it was a very safe place to work, and I expect that was pretty much a maximum lifetime exposure to lead in one hit ;-)

There are a fair few risks. Electrical and chemical burns, electrocution, fire, the weights involved, poisoning, heavy metals. It’s hard to think of a risk category that doesn’t apply.

It's not radioactive, so it's got that going for it, which is nice.

There are people doing it today, in the US.

https://youtube.com/@batteryguyz7203

Under normal conditions lithium metal doesn't spontaneously ignite. It is the least spicy of the Group 1 metals (ignoring the special case of hydrogen).

What is more fun is that it reacts with water (and all air has some moisture) which then leaves hydrogen to catch fire and explode.

One can replace air with pure nitrogen for example, but that complicates things.

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